One of the few positives to come out of the end of football has been the universal gratitude towards those greats of the past. The top players, the biggest matches, the greatest teams… It seems everywhere you look there’s a best XI or a top ten or even a classic game or goal being highlighted through social media. Things have got that desperate for competition, clubs have now started having votes on what fans think are the best kits.
But one thing I have noticed that has slightly disappointed me in all of this celebration of past greats is that many folk seem to think Nottingham Forest Football Club were formed in the mid 1970’s?
Ok we know that’s not true, but we can certainly blame one man (and his best friend) for all of this oversight. After all it was a certain Brian Howard Clough (along with Peter Taylor) who took a small provincial under-achieving mid table second division team to become champions of England at the first time of asking and back to back European Cup winners within the space of five years, much quicker than it would take to build Rome in fact.
But what about the previous 110+ years of history? After all didn’t it start at the Clinton Arms in 1865? Something must have happened prior to Old Big Head’s reign.
To be honest it’s not just before Clough… During his reign we all remember those two great sides he built… The one of Shilton, Anderson, McGovern, Robbo and co that went on to create iconic history with monumental success… And then the one of Clough junior, Walker, Pearce, Webb, the late 80’s which I fondly remember when Wembley was a second home. But what about the side of the mid 80’s? The one that always gets forgotten because Anderlecht paid a Referee to diminish the record books of what should have been US verses Spurs in the UEFA Cup Final. The one that finished third in the top division only six points behind champions Liverpool? One that included Dutch goalkeeper Hans van Breukelen, a young Chris Fairclough who won the clubs player of the season, wingers Wigley and Walsh and a striker plucked from Non-League, so typically by Brian Clough, in Peter Davenport, before selling him on for a six figure fee. That team too was great, with great players challenging Europe’s best… but too often forgotten or overlooked.
Post Clough we leap straight to the Collymore era, the best of the rest as they say. Frank Clark managed a side that took second tier promotion behind Crystal Palace to a following campaign finishing as third best in England, a year later we all remember singing ‘last team in Europe’ before being unfortunately trounced by a far too great Bayern Munich for my liking. Roy, Cooper, Woan, Stone, we never forget that team in thinking of ‘best in our more recent lifetimes’ but what about that great team the unfancied Dave Bassett produced?
The team of 98 was arguably as good if not better of that in 94 with Pierre (urrggh not him), Campbell, Bart-Man, Scot Gemmill… Why do we always forget about Scot Gemmill?
We all know what happened after and life being a Tricky ever since has, well been a bit grim. Millennials will point to the short-lasting trio of Huckerby, Johnson & Harewood as perhaps the best they’ve seen. Paul Hart assembled a side of youthful exuberance but in reality the likes of Morgan, Dawson, Jenas and Reid all had their best moments elsewhere.
Billy Davies the angry little Scot gave us hope, loveable rogues like Raddy, Robbie, Lewis, Dexter and the Moose gave us a couple of seasons of promotion hope… Since then its been more about survival, more Coaches than Broad Marsh Bus Station… We either warm to players who sit on the sidelines through injury… Think Chris Cohen, Kelvin Wilson or Jack Hobbs.. Or ones that soon get sold just as they come good… Michail Antonio, Oliver Burke, Britt Assombalonga and my favourite of all… Eric Lichaj.
But now we have Sabri… What is love? Joe ‘red thru n thru’ Worrall, the best right back in the league in Matty Cash, the ginger Makelele in Ben Watson, Tiago Silva, Joe Lolley, a crazy ass Goalkeeper that we all love and the best striker the club has probably had since the turn of the Millennium.
Things are looking up… I have forgotten my point already…
Yes… 1865… It all started as we know with a group of Shinny players led by JS Scrimshaw the clubs first Chairman. The teams first star however was perhaps Hucknall born Sam Weller Widdowson who’s biggest claim to fame might have been to invent shin pads, but what you might not have known was Widdowson, who represented Nottinghamshire at cricket in the summer and made just one England appearance in 1880, captain of the Reds from 1873 to 1885 (and eventually going on to become club chairman), he was also a hard bastard. Described as ‘no-nonsense’, ‘rugged’, and in his latter years ‘weighty’ in his only game for England, Widdowson went up to head a ball and shattered a Scots jaw with his cranium. Think a nineteenth century Stuart Pearce.
Widdowson wasn’t the first Forest player to play for England, he and full back Edwin Luntley made their debuts in a 5-4 loss at Hampden Park in 1880 but Reds winger Arthur Goodyer had a year earlier won his only cap in a 5-4 win against the same opposition at the Oval.
As the sport of football progressed during the late 1800’s, not for the want of trying Forest failed to gain election to the newly formed Football League and instead joined the Football Alliance which they won finishing two points ahead of Newton Heath (a club now known as Manchester United) in 1891/92. As champions Forest gained election to the Football League First Division and won their first major silverware in 1898… The FA Cup Final against Derby County… What better way than to win your first cup final against your nearest and dearest next-town neighbours.
That day, 16th April 1898 at Crystal Palace against a side that featured two greats in free scoring England Internationals John Goodall and Steve Bloomer… A man named Arthur Capes stole the show scoring twice in the first half in a game Forest would eventually win 3-1.
Capes scored 42 goals in 197 games for Forest and eventually gained his only England cap after moving to Stoke in 1903 but a player back then who was a regular England International whilst playing for the Reds was club captain Frank Forman who ironically signed from Derby in 1894.
Forman was a right half, defensive minded who read the game well and popped up with the odd goal along the way. In 256 games for Forest he scored 28 goals earning nine caps and a goal for England too, captaining his country in a 1-0 win against Ireland in 1902.
Forest have plenty of forgotten heroes from the early twentieth century. John Calvey was club top scorer three years in a row earning an England cap in 1902 before Grenville Morris came along.
Welsh International Inside-Forward Morris to this day holds the record for most goals scored as a Nottingham Forest player with 199 league goals and 217 in all during his fifteen-year record breaking reign.
Morris forged a prolific strike-force with Enoch West who himself scored 102 goals in 183 games before signing for Manchester United where he netted just as frequently. Think Collymore & Roy at their best but for five seasons instead of one. The team were actually relegated from the First Division in 1906 despite Morris netting 22 times and West scoring 17… They would bounce back at the first time of asking though and in 1909 would both play a part in the 12-0 record thumping of Leicester Fosse (now Leicester City) netting five of the dozen between them.
The year West was sold to Manchester United, Forest were relegated from the first division for a second time, not even an ageing Grenville Morris could get them out of this one though and for eleven years the Reds would play second tier soccer in between a first world war.
It was the goals of Jack Spaven that would help Forest win the second division for the second time (in 1922) but three years struggling in the top flight lead to more frustration and failure as the club found themselves back in the Second Division where they would stay for 24 years before relegation to the old Third Division South where they spent two seasons.
That was the time Forest signed Wally Ardron from Rotherham United, a striker who in the Third Division North had scored 105 goals in three seasons post war. In his first campaign he netted 25 as Forest finished fourth, in his second he grabbed 36 as the Reds won the title with promotion back to the second tier.
Ardron was Reds top goalscorer for four successive seasons… Only Ian Storey-Moore and Nigel Clough have matched that terrific feat.
As the club looked to bounce back and regain top tier status for the first time in over 30 years Jim Barrett was signed from West Ham United. An inside forward who was brought to score goals. Barrett did that netting 64 in 105 league games with Forest regaining their First Division place in 1957. Two years later they would win the FA Cup for a second time. A match when more heroes would be made.
Billy Walker was the man at the helm. A six-foot striker with Aston Villa and England in his day he had been in charge of Forest since 1939. An FA Cup winner as a player he won the competition as a Manager with Sheffield Wednesday in 1935 he repeated the feat with Forest in 1959.
Charlie ‘Chick’ Thomson in goal, Bill Whare, Joe McDonald, good old Jeff Whitefoot and who could forget big Bobby McKinlay? Skipper was Jack Burkitt, Roy Dwight (Elton’s cousin), Johnny Quigley, Tommy Wilson, Billy Gray and the wizardry Stewart Imlach.
Dwight only signed in the summer of 1958 for a substantial fee of 10,000 from Fulham. An outside forward with an eye for goal he netted 26 goals in all competitions including the opener in the Cup Final verses Luton before horrifically breaking his leg and being stretchered off. Dwight had to wait over 11 months for his return to playing.. He was however never the same player appearing just twice more in the red and white. What could have been if it wasn’t for that terrible injury.
Tommy Wilson had netted Forest’s second of that match at Wembley before injury to Dwight left the Reds clinging on with just ten men. Wilson was top goalscorer for three successive years, but his goals were largely provided by a Scottish winger who was arguably Forest’s finest prior to John Robertson.
Stewart Imlach signed from Derby in 1955 and was a tricky fast-paced dribbling wide man who scored 43 goals in 184 games for the club. Imlach became the first Nottingham Forest player to play for Scotland and appeared in the 1958 World Cup Finals before playing his part in the Cup Final win over Luton who he ironically joined in 1960.
That cup win for Forest again established the Nottingham outfit as a fashionable club and despite long serving boss Billy Walker calling it a day the club first under Andy Beattie, then more famously under Johnny Carey would enjoy a successful spell during the swinging sixties.
The skilful Frank Wignall was signed from Everton in 1963, Alan Hinton from Wolves in 1964, Joe Baker moved in from Arsenal in 1966… Big signings from big clubs, players who epitomised the era, footballers who had talent, footballers who played the right way, with swagger and style, during the time England were World Champions, a time when football had taken off, free-flowing and fashionable was certainly the way.
None more so than all of the above was Ian Storey-Moore who scored over 100 goals for Forest before moving to Manchester United in 1972. A tricky attacking flair player who played only once for England. He should have been capped more.
Moore helped Forest to a best-ever first division runners up finish in 1967 as the side also reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup. A Reds team that included the cultured Terry Hennessey in defence and the pleasing on the eye John Barnwell in midfield.
In October 1968 Forest sacked Jonny Carey and three worsening First Division seasons followed before inevitable relegation under Matt Gillies. That side which flirted with failure before finally falling and eventually being found in the depth of the second tier (after Dave McKay and Allan Brown) by a certain Mr Clough in 1975 also had its stars too.
Bob ‘Sammy’ Chapman was a Rolls Royce of a footballer (although I’ve since been corrected by older fans to say perhaps more of a ‘JCB’) whilst the slick Liam O’Kane at full back or centre half but for injury might have enjoyed European success. A young Peter Cormack would impress enough to sign for Bill Shankly’s Liverpool whilst the mercurial Duncan McKenzie could do much more than jump over Mini’s often playing his best football at Forest before earning a move to champions Leeds. Ironically it was Brian Clough who signed McKenzie during his 44 day stint at Elland Road. If Clough hadn’t failed at Leeds, might we have remembered some of these older stars more?
Perhaps we should do more to remember the greats of times gone by? I can’t imagine a time that i’ll ever forget my football club were once double European winners? I was too young to remember it then, but that doesn’t stop me being proud, just as I am of Wally Ardron and co for getting us out of the third tier of English football in 1951. Just as I am thankful for Julian Bennett, Junior Agogo, Ian Breckin and co doing the same in 2008.
Whatever era you represent and remember fondest, one thing is for sure, Nottingham Forest Football Club have produced some iconic moments, some superb players and some unbelievable history that might never be repeated again… Here’s hoping the club will continue to shine with even more great players, great teams, great games, great honours along the way and maybe in another few years we’ll remember the team of Lamouchi & co just as fondly as those we do under the likes of Billy Walker, Johnny Carey & Brian Clough to name a few.
Forgotten stars of Forest? We’ll always remember you!!!
*Article provided by Daniel Peacock (Editor).
*Main image @DailyMailUK Forest in controversial 1974 FA Cup action verses Newcastle United at St James’ Park.
